John Holt’s Book and Music Store

Complete Reading List, 1977 to 2001

Download this list as a pdf.

Question Authority

When I began work at Growing Without Schooling magazine in 1981 it was clear from the materials John Holt sold that he intended GWS to be a practical resource for parents and learners, as well as provide the intellectual, legal, and social groundwork for a new option to conventional education. Holt provided resources, research, support, and personal stories to give ordinary people the courage, ways, and means to teach their own children. When I first browsed through the John Holt Book and Music Store catalog I was shocked by titles like How to Raise a Healthy Child In Spite of Your Doctor, How to Play Piano Despite Years of Lessons, Teach Your Own, Anything School Can Do You Can Do Better, Equal Rights for Children, Escape From Childhood, Caring For Your Own Dead, Giving Up the Gun, Deschooling Society . . . but I soon appreciated their appeal to people who sought ways to live well in an increasingly standardized, technological world that treats education as a mass-produced product that requires force-feeding in school.

In 1981 it was nearly impossible to purchase school materials or textbooks for homeschooling use, so we had to rely on conventional bookstores and used bookstores (there were many of both then), third-party sources, public libraries, college libraries, textbook depositories, mail-order catalogs, and word of mouth to locate them. John Holt saw this need and addressed it by creating John Holt’s Book and Music Store, a mail-order catalog, built around books and materials parents could use with their children, as well as many items that can be used by children on their own.

This reading list contains the majority of materials we sold during our 31 years of business (I’ll add more as I discover what I missed), and some of them are undoubtedly dated. For instance, there is but one computer program in the whole catalog, but this isn’t surprising since the catalog ended in 2001, just as educational software via Internet began to establish itself. However, just seeing the titles and reading their blurbs can give you ideas of more recent, similar things you and your children would enjoy reading or using. When you click on the item and go to its description you may discover that the book or product has been updated for the 21st century, or that it is perfectly useful in its original edition, which I think is more often the case than not.

How Did You Homeschool Without the Internet?

This question comes up when I speak with new homeschoolers, who often marvel at all the curricula, testing services, and resources available online for homeschoolers and wonder how we could unschool our children without Minecraft, Kahn Academy, and so on. This list provides part of the answer, and reading the personal stories from parents and children that fill the back issues of Growing Without Schooling magazine provides another part of the answer. Of course, this isn’t the whole story for homeschooling; the “turn your home into a miniature school” wing of the movement is much larger than the unschooling, self-directed education wing. But for people who want to help their children develop in their own ways, by creating an education that fits each child and gets adjusted as growth and development occur, this reading list can give you many ideas.

The thing to remember is the internet, like this list, is simply a tool for you to use, a means to an end. I hope you will use this reading list not just to locate particular items, but also to spur your thoughts about what is possible with your children. For instance, have you considered teaching yourself and/or your children a musical instrument or how to sing in harmony? How about learning a foreign language by reading well-known comic books like Tintin or classic fairy tales in Spanish or German? What about giving children lots of time to learn about teamwork, math, and construction by building their own large-scale climbing structures? These are just some ideas you can glean from this list.

I hope that by consulting this list you can unschool your mind about what you and your children can do at home and in your community, and see many more possibilities for learning than simply enrolling in another class.

I hope you enjoy these unschooling resources, many originally recommended and reviewed by John Holt in the pages of Growing Without Schooling magazine, and that you’ll share updates and ideas for new additions to this list with me.

Patrick Farenga

President, HoltGWS, www.johnholtgws.com

NOTE:

An asterisk (*) next to an entry means that title was imported or independently published and can be especially difficult to find today. I provide hyperlinks to online sites as a convenience to you to learn more about the book or product. Some links go directly to a seller and I do not receive any compensation for linking to them. However, many links will take you to Amazon.com, where your purchase helps keep the Holt site paying its bills. Thanks for your support!

 Copyright 2014 by HoltGWS LLC

ALTERNATIVES TO COLLEGE

“And What About College?” How Homeschooling Leads to Admissions to the Best Colleges and Universities, Cafi Cohen

Bear’s Guide to Earning College Degrees Nontraditionally, John Bear, ed.

*Careers Without College, Ann Russo

College Degrees by Mail and Internet, John Bear

Cracking the S.A.T., Princeton Review

The Day I Became an Autodidact, Kendall Hailey

Earn College Credit For What You Know, Lois Lamdin

The Question is College, Herb Kohl

Your Hidden Credentials, Peter Smith

ART

Alphabet Art: Thirteen ABC's from Around the World, Leonard Fisher

Art From Many Hands: Multicultural Art Projects, Jo Miles Schuman

The Art Lesson, Tomie De Paola

Craft Supply Sourcebook, Margaret Boyd

Cray Pas (Jumbo Size for little hands)

The Doll Book, Karin Neuschutz

Drawing On The Right Side of The Brain, Betty Edwards

Drawing With Children: A Creative Method for Adult Beginners Too, Mona Brookes

*Faces of Greece: A Permanent Calendar, M. &J Sadoway

A Family, Carl Larson

*Good Impressions Rubber Stamp Catalog

*The Great Composer Calendar, Bellerophon Books

A Home, Carl Larson

*Individual Chalkboard

Making Things, Anne Wiseman

Modeling Beeswax, Stockmar

Mommy, It’s a Renoir! Art Postcards and Handbook, Aline Wolf

Pentel Fine Point Felt Pens (Set of 36 assorted colors)

Pentel Water Colors (Set of 12 assorted colors in tubes)

Sakura Water Colors (Set of 18 assorted colors in tubes)

Sandtiquity, Simo, Wells, and Wells

*Sta-Tite Printing Kit, Cosco Inc. c.

BABIES

The Amazing Newborn, Marshall & Phyllis Klaus

*A Baby Learns What Is What, Susan and Howard Richman

The Biography of a Baby, Millicent Shinn

Birth Reborn, Michel Odent

Childbirth With Insight, Elizabeth Noble

Oh Boy! Babies, Herzog and Mali

CHILDREN & LEARNING

The Acorn People, Ron Jones

An American Childhood, Annie Dillard

*Born To Love, Joann Grohman

*The Best of Boomerang! The Children’s Audio Magazine About Big Ideas, Boomerang

Child’s Work: Taking Children’s Choices Seriously, Nancy Wallace

Compelling Belief: The Culture of American Schooling, Stephen Arons

The Continuum Concept: In Search of Happiness Lost, Jean Liedloff

Creating Learning Communities: Models, Resources, and New Ways of Thinking About Teaching and Learning, Ron Miller, ed.

Deschooling Society, Ivan Illich

Dialogues With Children, Gareth Matthews

A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling, John T. Gatto

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, John T. Gatto

Equal Rights For Children, Howard Cohen

Essays Into Literacy, Frank Smith

*Everyone Is Able: Exploding the Myth of Learning Disabilities, Susannah Sheffer, ed.

A Free Range Childhood: Self-Regulation at Summerhill School, Matthew Appleton

*Generally Speaking, Ronald Macaulay

Good Stuff: Learning Tools for All Ages, Rebecca Rupp

Growing Up Absurd, Paul Goodman

Growing With Your Children, Herb Kohl

How To Survive In Your Native Land, James Herndon

In Their Own Way: Discovering and Encouraging Your Child’s Multiple Intelligences, Thomas Armstrong.

Insult to Intelligence: The Bureaucratic Invasion of Our Classrooms, Frank Smith

*Kids: Day In, Day Out, Elizabeth Scharlatt

The Lives of Children, George Dennison

The Long Haul: An Autobiography, Myles Horton

The Myth of the A.D.D. Child: 50 Ways to Improve Your Child's Behavior and Attention Span without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion, Dr. Thomas Armstrong

The Myth of The Hyperactive Child, Peter Schrag & Diane Divoky

The Naked Children, Daniel Fader

No Contest: The Case Against Competition, Alfie Kohn

None of the Above, David Owen

Obedience To Authority, Stanley Milgram

Punished by Rewards: The trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes, Alife Kohn

*Reading and Loving, Leila Berg

*Sharing Treasures: Book Reviews by John Holt, Patrick Farenga, ed.

Society, State, and Schools: A Case for Structural and Confessional Pluralism, The Calvin Center

Totto Chan: The Little Girl in the Window, Tetsuko Kutoyanagi

*Troubled Children: A Fresh Look At School Phobia, Patricia Knox

The Underground History of American Education: A School Teacher's Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling, John T. Gatto

Uptaught: A Professor Discovers His Students on the Way to a New University, Ken MacRorie

Wally's Stories: Conversations in the Kindergarten, Vivian Paley

Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation, Edward Deci

The Way It Spozed To Be, James Herndon

We Have To Call It School: A Documentary Film about the Danish Ny Lilleskole, Peggy Hughes

*Young Children: Natural Learners, A Growing Without Schooling (GWS) Supplement

FACTS & SCIENCE

*All New Dinosaurs, R. Long & S. Welles

Amateur Naturalist's Handbook, Vinson Brown

The Anatomy Coloring Book, Wynn Kapit & Lawrence Elson

Asimov On Physics, Isaac Asimov

The Atlas of the Human Body, Takeo Takahashi

Batteries and Magnets (A Know How Book), Heather Amery

The Botany Coloring Book, Paul Young

Castle, David Macaulay

Chemistry Experiments For Children, Virginia Mullin

Conceptual Physics, Paul Hewitt

Detective Science: 40 Crime-Solving, Case-Breaking, Crook-Catching Activities for Kids, Jim Wiese

Digging Dinosaurs: The Search That Unraveled the Mystery of Baby Dinosaurs, J. Horner and J. Gorman

Explorabook: A Kid's Science Museum in a Book, John Cassidy and the Exploratorium

The Facts of Life, R.D. Laing

A Field Guide To Dinosaurs, David Lambert

The Flying Circus of Physics with Answers, Jearl Walker

Fossil Factory: A Kid's Guide to Digging up  Dinosaurs, Exploring Evolution, and  Finding Fossils, Niles Eldredge

Fun With Electronics, J.G. McPherson

The Geography Coloring Book, Wynn Kapit

Golden Guide and Field Guide Series, Herbert Zim, editor:

Insects

Birds

Birds of North America (A Guide to Field Identification)

Pond Life

Reptiles and Amphibians

Rocks, Gems, and Minerals

Rocks and Minerals (A Guide to Field Identification)

Trees of North America (A Guide to Field Identification)

Wildflowers (A Guide to Field Identification)

How To Lie With Statistics, Darrel Huff

The Human Brain Coloring Book, Marion Diamond & Arthur Scheibel

Kon-Tiki, Thor Heyerdahl

Legal Research: How to Find and Understand the Law, Stephan Elias

Lives of A Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher, Lewis Thomas

The Marine Biology Coloring Book, Thomas Niesen

Mr. Halley's Comet, Sky & Telescope

Nomadic Furniture, J. Hennessey & V. Papanek

Oxford Picture Dictionary of American English, Ed Parnwell, ed.

Physics Experiments For Children, Muriel Mandell

Pint-Size Science: Finding-Out Fun for You and Your Young Child, Linda Weston

A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold

Saving The Peregrine Falcon, Caroline Arnold

Science Experiments You Can Eat, Vicki Cobb

*Smith & Hawken's Catalog of Gardening Tools

Spotter's Handbook:  Flowers, Trees, & Birds of North America, Michael Ruggeno

Tops, Bernie Zubrowski

The Tracker, Tom Brown

Underground, David Macaulay

Using A Law Library: A Citizen's Legal Manual, HALT

Walk In The Rain Forest, K.J. Pratt

The Way Things Work, David Macauley

The Weather Companion: An Album of Meterological History, Science, and Folklores, Gary Lockhart

"What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character, Richard Feynma

FOR A CHANGING WORLD

Changing Nature of Man: Introduction to a Historical Psychology, J.H. van den Berg

Grassroots Fundraising, Joan Flanagan

*Guide To Home Energy, Mother Earth News, issue #18

Man's Search For Meaning, Victor Frankl

Material World: A Global Family Portrait, Peter Menzel

Possum Living: How to Live Well Without a Job and with (Almost) No Money, Dolly Freed

Small Is Possible, George McRobie

Tomorrow Is Our Permanent Address: The Search for an Ecological Science of Design As Embodied in the Bioshelter, Nancy & John Todd

Tools For Conviviality, Ivan lllich

Unjobbing: The Adult Liberation Handbook, Michael Fogler

Toward A History of Needs, Ivan Illich

Weapons and Hope, Freeman Dyson

Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence, Joe Dominquez and Vicki Robin

FOR CHILDREN... AND ADULTS

Aleutian Boy, Ethel Ross Oliver

Alice In Wonderland & Through The Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll, annotated by Martin Gardner

All-of-A-Kind Family, Sydney Taylor

All Sail Set: A Romance of the Flying Cloud, Armstrong Perry

*American Heroes: In and Out of School, Nat Hentoff

Animal Family, Randall Jarrell

Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery

The Annotated Alice, Martin Gardner (ed.)

Are All The Giants Dead?, Mary Norlon

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Ernest Gaines

Bachelor of Arts, R.K. Narayan

Bears, Pirates and Silver Lace, Anne Fisher

The Best Science Fiction Stories of H.G. Wells, H.G. Wells

The Black Arrow, Robert Louis Stevenson

Caddie Woodlawn, Carol Brink

A Canticle For Leibowitz, Walter Miller

Captains Courageous, Rudyard Kipling

Charlotte's Web, E. B. White

A Child's Christmas In Wales, Dylan Thomas

Chinese Word For Horse: and Other Stories, John Lewis

The Complete Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Anderson, Illustrated by Arthur Ransome

Connie's New Eyes, Bernard Wolf

The Dispossessed, Ursula Le Guin

Dune, Frank Herbert

The Education of Little Tree, Forrest Carter

Emil and The Detectives, Erich Kastner

Famous Ghost Stories, Bennett Cerf (ed.)

The First Honest Book About Lies, Jonni Kincher

A Far-off Place, Laurens van der Post

A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, 1830–1832, Joan Blos

Ghost Stories of An Antiquary, Montague R. James

Gnomes, Poortvliet & Huygen

Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob & Wilhem Grimm

Harriet The Spy, Louise Fitzhughe

Heidi, Johanna Spy

A High Wind In Jamaica, Richard Hughes

The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien

The Incredible Journey, Sheila Bumford

Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling

Kidnapped, Robert Louis Steven

Ladder of Angels, Madeleine L'Engle

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin

The Leopard, Giuseppe de Lampedusa

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis

The Little Bookroom, Eleanor Farjeon

The Man Who Kept Cigars In His Cap, Jim Heynen

Many Dimensions, Charles Williams

Masquerade, Kit Williams

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Howard Pyle

Mipam, Lama Yongdon

*The Modern Adventures of Robin Hood, Jamie Smith

National Velvet, Enid Bagnold

Otto of The Silver Hand, Howard Pyle

Our Town, Thornton Wilder

Out of The Silent Planet, C.S. Lewis

Oxford Book of Poetry For Children, E. Blishen, ed.

The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster

Pippi Longstocking, Astrid Lindgren

A Pocket Book of Short Stories

Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe

Rocannon's World, Ursula Le Guin

Roller Skates, Ruth Sawyer

Rootabaga Stories, Carl Sandburg

The Secret Garden, France Hodgson Burnett

The Secret of NIMH, Robert O'Brien

Shawno, George Dennison

Sign of the Beaver, Elizabeth Speare

Stalky & Co., Rudyard Kipling

Stickeen, John Muir

A Story Like The Wind, Lars van der Post

Swami & Friends, R.K. Narayan

Through Grandpa’s Eyes, Patricia MacLachlan

The Time Machine, H. G. Wells

Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson

Twelve, Elaine Kittredge

Understood Betsy, Dorothy Fisher

Very Far Away From Anywhere Else, Ursula Le Guin

Walk When The Moon Is Full, Frances Hamerstrom

Winnie-The-Pooh, A.A. Milne

The Word For World Is Forest, Ursula Le Guin

The Yearling, Marjorie K. Rawlings

GADGETS

*Bookplates, Holt Associates Inc.

Hearing Protectors, David Clark Inc.

*Hitmaster Baseball Training System, Bob Doolittle

*Sleep Shades, Sleep Shade Inc.

*Stars and Stories, Lawrence Bangs (Computer program)

HEALTH

Anatomy of An Illness As Perceived By the Patient, Norman Cousins

Caring For Your Own Dead: A Final Act of Love, Lisa Carlson

Children Facing Grief, Janis Loomis Romond

Confessions of A Medical Heretic, Robert Mendelsohn, MD

Dealing Creatively With Death: A Manual of Death Education and Simple Burial, Ernest Morgan

Diet for a New America, John Robbins

Everybody’s Guide to Homeopathic Medicine, Stephen Cummings and Dana Ullman

How To Raise a Healthy Child In Spite of Your Doctor, Robert Mendelsohn, MD

Immunization: The Reality Behind the Myth, Walene James

Love, Medicine, and Miracles, Bernie Siegel, MD

Nontoxic and Natural, Debra Lynn Dadd

*Vaccinations, Mothering Magazine

Vaccines: Are They Really Safe and Effective?, Niel Z. Miller

HISTORY & GEOGRAPHY

Anne Frank: The Diary of A Young Girl, Anne Frank

Black Foremothers, Dorothy Sterling

The Discovery of the Americas, Betsy and Giulio Maestro

EarthSearch: A Kids’ Geography Museum in a Book, John Cassidy

The Erie Canal, Peter Spier

Fifty-Five Men: The Story of The Constitution, Fred Rodell

Galileo’s Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love, Dava Sobel

Giving Up The Gun, Noel Perrin

Goode's World Atlas, Rand McNally

Helen Keller, Stewart and Pollyanne Graff

Hiroshima, John Hersey

Indian America: A Traveler's Companion, Eagle Walking Turtle

Ishi In Two Worlds, Theodora Kroeber

Lincoln: A Photobiography, Russell Freedman

Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, Dava Sobel

Magnetic Globe Puzzle

The Man Who Planted Hope and Grew Happiness, Jean Giorno

Mapmakers, J. N. Wilford

Mark-It Maps. Reusable outline maps for DIY geography.

Maus: A Survivor’s Tale Part 1 & Part 2, Art Spiegelman

Martin Luther King, Jr., Ed Clayton

Memoirs of A Medieval Woman, Louise Collis

Myths and Legends of The Indians of The Southwest, Dutton & Olin

Native American Testimony, Peter Nabakov, ed.

Number The Stars, Lois Lowry

Our Vanishing Landscape, Eric Sloane

A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn

Penguin Atlas of Medieval History, Colin McEvedy

A Reverence For Wood, Eric Sloane

*A Sampler of Lifestyles: Womanhood and Youth in Colonial Lyme, Mary Bakke

Self-Portrait, Trina Schart Hyman

This Is The Way It Used To Be In The Early 1900s, Marjorie K. Lawrence

Unpuzzling Your Past: A Basic Guide to Genealogy, Emily A. Croom

Voices of The Civil War, Milton Meltzer

Women of The West, Cathy Luchetti

HOME & GARDEN

Adventuring With Children, Nan and Kevin Jeffrey

Best Places To Go: A Family Destination Guide, Nan Jeffrey

Burpee Gardening Catalog

Cars and How They Go, Joanna Cole

Cash From Square-Foot Gardening, Mel Bartholomew

Drive It Till It Drops, Joe Troise

*Four Season Gardening, Norm Lee

Garrett Wade Tool Catalog

*Guide To Home Energy, Mother Earth News

How To Make Your Car Last Almost Forever, Jack Gillis

*Kids For Sail, Pam and Sam Bendall

New World of Travel, Arthur Frommer

The Complete Buyer’s Guide to the Best Outdoor and Recreation Equipment, Kevin Jeffrey

*Spaces for Children: Learning/Play Environments for Home and School, Peter Bergson

Square-Foot Gardening, Mel Bartholomew

*U.S. and World Map Hardwood Puzzles, Pacific Puzzle Company

The Victory Garden Kids Book, Marjorie Waters

What To Do After You Turn off The TV, Frances Moore Lappe

Whole Foods For The Whole Family, Roberta Johnson (ed.)

HOMESCHOOLING

*An “A” in Life: Famous Homeschoolers, Mac and Nancy Plent

*An Evening with Grace Llewellyn, Holt Associates

And The Children Played, Pat Joudry

And The Skylark Sing With Me: Adventures In Homeschooling and Community-Based Education, David Albert

Anything School Can Do, You Can Do Better, Maire Mullarney

The Art of Education: Reclaiming Your Family, Community, and Self, Linda Dobson

*The Beginner’s Guide to Homeschooling, Patrick Farenga

Child’s Work: Taking Children’s Choices Seriously, Nancy Wallace

*Children Learn At Home, Ro Krivanek

The Complete Home Educator, Mario Pagnoni

*Comprehensive G.E.D. Program, Cambridge

*Constitutional Basis of Homeschooling, John Holt

Deschooling Our Lives, Matt Hern, ed.

Earning Our Own Money: Homeschoolers 13 and Under Tell Their Stories, Susannah Sheffer, ed.

Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense, David Guterson

The First Homeschooling Catalog, Jean and Donn Reed

Freedom Challenge: African-American Homeschoolers, Grace Llewellyn, ed.

Hard Times in Paradise: An American Family’s Struggle to Carve Out a Homestead in California’s Redwood Mountains, David and Micki Colfax

Home Education and Constitutional Liberties, John Whitehead & Wendell Bird

The Home School Source Book, Jean and Donn Reed

Homeschooling for Excellence, David and Micki Colfax

*Homeschooling In The News, 1991, Patrick Farenga, ed.

Home Study Opportunities, Laurie M. Carlson

Homeschoolers’ Success Stories: 15 Adults and 12 Young People Share the Impact That Homeschooling Has Made on Their Lives, Linda Dobson

Homeschooling: A Patchwork of Days. Share a Day with 30 Homeschooling Families, Nancy Lande

I Learn Better by Teaching Myself and Still Teaching Ourselves, Agnes Lesitico

*Learning Without a Curriculum, Patrick Farenga

*Living is Learning Curriculum Guides, K to 12, Nancy Plent

*Mother Earth News, #64 & #85

Peterson’s Independent Study Catalog, Peterson Guides

Real Lives: Eleven Teenagers Who Don't Go to School Tell Their Own Stories, Grace Llewellyn, ed.

A Sense of Self: Listening to Homeschooled Adolescent Girls, Susannah Sheffer

Story of A Bill: Legalizing Homeschooling in Pennsylvania, Howard Richman

*Survey of Washington State Homeschoolers, Jon & Wendy Wartes

Taking Charge Through Homeschooling, Larry and Susan Kaseman

*Teen Panel (tape), Holt Associates

Teenage Homeschoolers: College or Not?, Patrick Farenga

The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How To Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education, Grace Llewellyn

Trust The Children: An Activity Guide for Homeschooling and Alternative Learning, Anna Kealoha

*We Learn At Home, Katharine Houk

*Who Does What When, Kate Kerman

Young Children Learning, Barbara Tizard & Martin Hughes

JOHN HOLT

How Children Fail

How Children Learn

The Underachieving School

What Do I Do Monday?

Escape From Childhood: The Needs and Rights of Children

Freedom and Beyond

Growing Without Schooling: A Record of a Grassroots Movement, V.1, Issues 1 to 12

Instead of Education: Ways to Help People Do Things Better

Never Too Late: My Musical Autobiography

Teach Your Own

Learning All The Time

Related titles:

A Life Worth Living: The Selected Letters of John Holt, Susannah Sheffer, ed.

The Legacy of John Holt: A Man Who Truly Understood, Trusted, and Respected Children, Patrick Farenga and Carlo Ricci, eds.

*Sharing Treasures: Book Reviews by John Holt, Patrick Farenga

LANGUAGES

A Basic Course In American Sign Language, Humphries, Padden, and O’Rourke

*Blanche Neige et les Sept Nains, Walt Disney

Caperucita Roja, Hanna Hutchinson

Cendrillon, Walt Disney

*El Flautista Cantan de Guadalajara, Hanna Hutchinson

The Learnables, Foreign language courses

L'Ile Noir, Herge

La Isla Negra, Herge

Read Japanese Today, Len Walsh

Die Schwarze Insel, Herge

Tintin au Tibet, Herge

Tintin en el Tibet, Herge

Los Tres Osos, Hanna Hutchinson

Les Trois Petits Cochons, Walt Disney

LEARNING DISABILITIES

In Their Own Way, Thomas Armstrong

Learning Denied, Denny Taylor

The Learning Mystique, Gerald Coles

The Magic Feather, Bill & Lori Granger

LITERATURE & HUMOR

 

A.J. Wentworth, B.A., H.F. Ellis

American Tongue & Cheek, Quinn

The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder

Country of The Pointed Firs, Sarah Jewett

A Death In The Family, James Agee

Five Stories, Willa Cather

Herland, Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A High Wind In Jamaica, Richard Hughes

I Never Saw Another Butterfly, Hana Volavklova

The Ides of March, Thornton Wilder

I'm Nobody, Who Are You?, Emily Dickinson

The King Must Die, Mary Renault

The Leopard, Giuseppe de Lampedusa

Leaven of Malice, Robertson Davies

Letters of E.B. White, Dorothy Guth (ed.)

The Little Bookroom, Eleanor Farjeon

The Lives of Archy and Mehitabel, Don Marquis

Luisa Domic, George Dennison

A Man For All Seasons, Robert Bolt

Many Dimensions, Charles Williams

The Miracle Worker, William Gibson

One Man's Meat, E.B. White

Orsinian Tales, Ursula Le Guin

The Oxford Book of Poetry For Children, E. Blishen, ed.

Oxford Book of Short Poems, P.J. Kavanagh & J. Michie

The Palm Wine Drinkard, Amos Tutula

Parkinson's Law, C.N. Parkinson

The Penguin Stephen Leacock

Pocket Book of 0. Henry Stories

The Pocket Book of Ogden Nash

A Pocket Book of Short Stories, Edmund Speare (ed.)

Rehearsal's off, George Booth

Robert Frost's Poems, Robert Frost

School Is Hell, Matt Groening

The Second Tree From The Corner, E.B. White

The Tale of Pierrot and Other Stories, George Dennison

Think Good Thoughts About A Pussycat, George Booth

To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee

Well, There's Your Problem, E. Koren

A Zoo In My Luggage, Gerald Durrell

MATH

The Abacus, Jesse Dilson

Aha! Insight, Martin Gardner

The Algebra Survival Guide: A Conversational Guide for the Thoroughly Befuddled, Josh Rappaport

Anchor Math: A Brain Compativle Approach to Teaching Math, Leslie Hart

Arithmetic Made Simple, Sperling and Levison

Card Games for Children, Len Collis

Elementary Algebra, Harold Jacobs

A Teacher’s Guide to Elementary Algebra, Harold Jacobs

The I Hate Math Book, Marilyn Burns

The Lady Or The Tiger? and Other Logic Puzzles, Raymond Smullian

Math By Kids: A Collection of Word Problems Written by Kids for Kids of All Ages, Susan Richman, ed.

The Math Kit: A Three-Dimensional Tour Through Mathematics, Ron Van Der Meer & Bob Gardner

Mathematics, A Human Endeavor: A Textbook for Those Who Think They Don’t Like the Subject, Harold Jacobs

A Teacher’s Guide to Mathematics, A Human Endeavor, Harold Jacobs

Mathematician's Delight, W. W. Sawyer

*Mathplots, Kate Kerman

The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure, Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Penrose Tiles To Trapdoor Ciphers, Martin Gardner

Survival Mathematics, Williams & Cohan

MUSIC BOOKS

Acoustic Guitar Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Buy and Maintain a New or Used Guitar, Larry Sandberg

Best Loved Songs of The American People, Denis Agay

Chroma Guitar Method, Howard Roberts

A Coloring Book of Great Composers: Bach to Berlioz, Bellerophon Books

Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music, Michael Kennedy (ed.)

For Children, Vol. 1 & For Children, Vol. 2, Bela Bartok

How To Play the Piano Despite Years of Lessons, Ward Cannel & Fred Marx

Making Music For The Joy of It, Stephanie Judy

Magic Trumpets: The Story of Jazz for Young People, Stephen Longstreet

Mikrokosmos, Vol. 1, Bela Bartok

*Mrs. Stewart Piano Lessons, Phyllis Jansma

Music, Neil Ardley

The Nutcracker, Warren Chappel

*Ocarina, handmade musical instrument by R. Hodgkinson

Peter and The Wolf, Warren Chappel

Piano Handbook, Gregory Pond

Portraits (Progressive Early-Grade Piano Pieces), John Lampkin

Read By Ear: An All-In-One Recorder Book with Suzuki Approach, Richard S. Perry

The Recorder Book, Kenneth Wollitz

Rise Up Singing: The Group Singing Songbook, Peter Blood and Annie Patterson, eds.

Sing For Freedom: The Story of The Civil Rights Movement Through Its Songs, Guy Carawan & Candie Carawan

The Singing Bee, Jane Hart (ed.)

Suzuki Cello School, Vol. 1 & Suzuki Cello School, Vol. 2, Shinichi Suzuki

Suzuki Piano Book I & Suzuki Piano Book 2, Shinichi Suzuki

Suzuki Violin Book I & Suzuki Violin Book 2, Shinichi Suzuki

Women Composers, Carol Plantamura

Women Music Makers: An Introduction to Women Composers, Janet Nichols

World Beat: A Listener's Guide to Contemporary World Music on CD, Peter Spencer

The Young Person's Guide To Playing The Piano, Sidney Harrison

MUSIC RECORDINGS

Christmas Music, Tapiola Children’s Choir

For Children Record, Hungaroton

*For Kids by Kids Tape, The King Bros.

*Homestyle Harmony, The Lester Family

*John Holt and Cello at Home, Holt Associates

*John Payne Saxophone Choir, John Payne

*The King Brothers Sing The King, The King Bros.

Kokkonen 4th Symphony, Finnish Radio Orchestra

Making and Playing Homemade Musical Instruments, Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer

New Morning For The World/Passion of Martin Luther King, Joseph Schwantner

Platero and I, Ray Sealey

*Respighi/Mahler/Bizet, Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra

*No Covers: King Brothers, King Brothers

Sounds of Finland, Tapiola Children’s Choir

Suzuki Cello School CD, Vol 1 & 2, Alfred

Suzuki Piano School CD, Vol. 1 & V. 2, Alfred

PARENTING

Discipline Without Shouting Or Spanking: Practical Options for Parents of Preschoolers, Jerry Wyckoff & Barbara Undell

The Family Bed, Tine Thevinin

The Heart Has Its Own Reasons, Mary Ann Cahill

Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too, Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

Three In A Bed: The Benefits of Sleeping with Your Baby, Deborah Jackson

What’s A Smart Woman Like You Doing At Home?, Linda Burton, Janet Dittmer, & Cheri Loveless

PLAY

The Klutz Book of Classic Board Games, Klutz Press

Cooperative Sports & Games Book: Challenge Without Competition, Terry Orlick

The Dancing Puppet Theater, Doreen D’Eath

The Klutz Book of Lego Crazy Action Contraptions, Don Rathjen

The Klutz Book of Magic, John Cassidy & Michael Stroud

Making Theater: Developing Plays with Young People, Herb Kohl

Oh Scrud! (A spelling card game)

The Usborne Big Book of Picture Puzzles, Usborne Books

Puzzles: Old and New: How To Make and Solve Them, Jerry Slocum and Jack Botermans

The Secret Door, Family Pastimes

Quadro Construction Sets, Quadro

REMEMBERING CHILDHOOD

The African Child, Camara Laye

The Book of Small, Emily Carr

*Greenleaf, Connie Bernhardt

My Childhood, Carl Nielsen

SERIES

By L.M. Boston:

The Children of Green Knowe

An Enemy At Green Knowe

The River At Green Knowe

A Stranger At Green Knowe

The Treasure of Green Knowe

By G.K. Chesterton:

The Complete Father Brown

The Innocence of Father Brown

By Susan Cooper:

The Dark Is Rising

Greenwitch

Over Sea, Under Stone

The Grey King

By Herge: The Adventures of Tintin:

The Black Island

The Blue Lotus

The Broken Ear

The Calculus Affair

The Castafiore Emerald

Cigars of the Pharaoh

The Crab with the Golden Claws

Destination Moon

Explorers on the Moon

Flight 714

King Ottokar’s Sceptre

Land of Black Gold

Prisoners of The Sun

Red Rackham’s Treasure

Red Sea Sharks

Secret of the Unicorn

The Seven Crystal Balls

Shooting Star

Tintin in America

Tintin and the Picaros

Tintin in Tibet

 

By Ladybird Books:

Read It Yourself Books, Level 1 & Read It Yourself Books, Level 2

By Ursula Le Guin:

The Wizard of Earthsea

The Tombs of Atuan

The Farthest Shore

By C.S. Lewis:

The Magician's Nephew

The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe

The Horse and His Boy

Prince Caspian

Voyage of The Dawn Treader

The Silver Chair

The Last Battle

By Lucinda Landon: Meg Mackintosh Solve-It-Yourself Mysteries

The Missing Babe Ruth Baseball

The Curious Whale Watch

The Medieval Castle

Camp Creepy

The Locked Library

The Mystery at the Soccer Match

 

By E. Nesbit:

Five Children and It

The Phoenix and The Carpet

The Story of The Amulet

 

By Mary Norton:

The Borrowers

The Borrowers Afield

The Borrowers Afloat

The Borrowers Aloft

 

By Beatrix Potter:

Mr. Jeremy Fisher

Peter Rabbit

The Tailor of Gloucester

The Tale of Benjamin Bunny

The Tale of Mrs. Tiggywinkle

The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin

The Tale of the Pie and the Patty Man

The Tale of the Two Bad Mice

By Arthur Ransome

Swallows and Amazons

Swallowdale

Peter Duck

Winter Holiday

Coot Club

Pigeon Post

We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea

Secret Water

The Big Six

Missee Lee

The Picts and the Martyrs

Great Northern?

By Glen Rounds:

Whitey Takes A Trip

Whitey's First Round Up

By J.R.R. Tolkien:

The Fellowship of the Ring

The Two Towers

The Return of the King

By Laura Ingalls Wilder:

Little House in the Big Woods

Farmer Boy

Little House on the Prairie

On the Banks of Plum Creek

By the Shores of Silver Lake

The Long Winter

Little Town on the Prairie

TELEVISION

Four Arguments For The Elimination of Television, Jerry Mander

Unplugging The Plug-In Drug, Marie Winn

TESTS

Complete Guide To Taking Tests, Bernard Feder

How To Beat The S.A.T. and All Standardized Multiple-Choice Tests, Michael Donner

How To Take The S.A.T., Marcia Lawrence

The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould

*Standing Up To The S.A.T., Denise Carty-Bennia/FairTest

Ten Real S.A.T.s, College Board

WORDS & WRITING

Books: From Writer To Reader, Howard Greenfeld

*Children's Writing & GWS, Holt Associates (Tape)

Eight Hands Round: A Patchwork Alphabet, Ann Paul

Families Writing, Peter Stillman

Modern Display Alphabets, Paul Kennedy

On Writing Well, William Zinsser

Oxford Picture Dictionary of American English, E.C. Parnwell

*Responding to Children’s Writing, Susannah Sheffer

Rhyme’s Reason, John Hollander

Scott Foresman Beginning Dictionary, Barnhart Thorndike

The Story of English, R. McCrum, W. Cran, and R. MacNeil

Write Away: A Friendly Guide for Teenage Writers, Peter Stillman

Writing Because We Love To: Homeschoolers At Work, Susannah Sheffer

Write From The Start: Tapping Your Child's Natural Writing Ability, Donald Graves & Virginia Stuart

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, Natalie Goldberg

WORK & COMMUNITY

Cities and The Wealth of Nations: Principles of Economic Life, Jane Jacobs

Economics As If The Earth Really Mattered: A Catalyst Guide to Socially Conscious Investing, Susan Meeker-Loury

The Economy of Cities, Jane Jacobs

Ethical Investing, Domini & Kinde

Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity, Frances Moore Lappe & Joseph Collins

Good Work, E. F. Schumacher

Good Works: A Guide To Careers In Social Change, Jessica Cowan

Growing A Business, Paul Hawken

*Growing A Business-Raising A Family: Ideas and Inspiration for the Work-At-Home Parent, Jan  & Charlie Fletcher

In Search of Excellence, Waterman & Peters

Muddling Towards Frugality, Warren Johnson

Of Cradles & Careers: A Guide to Reshaping Your Job to Include a Baby in Your Life, Kaye Lowman

Paper Money, Adam Smith

Shadow Work, Ivan Illich

Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, E.F. Schumacher

Steady State Economics, Herman Daly

Theory Z: How American Business Can Meet the Japanese Challenge, W. Ouchi

Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do, Studs Terkel

YOUNG CHILDREN

Amos and Boris, William Steig

Anno's Counting Book, Mitsumasa Anno

As I Was Crossing Boston Common, Norma Farber

A Baby Sister For Frances, Russell Hoban

The Bear That Wasn't, Frank Tashlin

The Bear's Toothache, David McPhail

Bedtime for Frances, Russel Hoban

Before You Were Three: How You Began to Walk, Talk, Explore and Have Feelings, Harris & Levy

Benjamin Franklin, lngri d'Aulaire & Edgar Parin

A Birthday For Frances, Russell Hoban

Blueberries For Sal, Robert McCloskey

Bread and Jam For Frances, Russell Hoban

Chicken Soup With Rice: A Book of Months, Maurice Sendak

Daniel's Duck, Clyde Bulla

Ellen's Lion, Crocket Johnson

Everyone Knows What A Dragon Looks Like, Jay Williams

Father Gander's Nursery Rhymes: The Equal Rhymes Amendment, Doug Larde

Henry Bear's Park, David McPhail

A House Is A House For Me, Mary Ann Hobemum

Lifetimes: The Beautiful Way to Explain Death to Children, Bryan Mellonie

Little Bear, Else Miharik

A Little Schubert, M.B. Goffstein

Madeline, Ludwig Bemelmans

The Maggie B, Iren Haas

Many Moons, James Thurber

The Mysterious Tadpole, Steven Kellogg

Now One Foot, Now The Other, Tomie de Paola

One Morning In Maine, Robert McCloskey

The Philharmonic Gets Dressed, Karla Kuski

Richard Scarry's Best First Book Ever, Richard Scarry

The Story of Ferdinand, Munro Leaf

The Tenth Good Thing About Barney, Judith Viorst

Through Grandpa's Eyes, Patricia MacLachlan

The Train, David McPhail

The Ugly Duckling, Lorinda Bryan Cauley

The Village Tree, Taro Yashima

What Do People Do All Day?, Richard Scarry